The 2016 Presidential Election: Donald Trump.

With Gary Johnson representing the Libertarian Party and Jill Stein representing the Green Party there are actually four candidates in the US Presidential race.

However here I will concentrate on the candidates for the two main Republican and Democrat Parties; Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

The most obvious thing that qualifies Donald Trump for the Presidency is that fact that he has won the nomination for the Republican Party. In order to do this he had to beat out 17 other candidates in the most competitive race for a party's nomination in modern political history. Trump achieved this despite stiff opposition from the Republican establishment.

The reason why the Republican establishment are so opposed to Donald Trump is that despite all the bravado he is actually the most moderate and mainstream Republican candidate certainly since George H. Bush back in 1988.

Take for example Trump's signature policy of building a wall along America's border with Mexico. This is a policy that has been in every successive Republican Presidential manifesto since the 1990's. It has actually been the law of the land since 2006 when it was voted for by a certain Hillary Clinton, Senator for New York.

What has been preventing this law being put into practice is that successive Congresses have refused to fund the completion of the wall that is already in place across much of America's border with Mexico. So it seems the nuance of this discussion of getting Mexico to pay for the wall has been lost on a lot of people who aren't particularly knowledgeable on the subject.

Then of course there is Trump's plan to ban all Muslims from America. The important thing to remember about this is that Trump never said it. Instead it was something the Hillary Clinton campaign just made up and in this brave new world of post-reality politics not a single journalist bothered correct them on.

In the wake of the December 2015 terror attack in San Bernardino, California Trump did propose a temporary ban on Muslim's entering the country until the US could figure out and fix the problems with it's visa system. One of the San Bernardino attackers - Tashfeen Malik- was born in Pakistan and lived in Saudi Arabia before entering the US on a spousal visa.

The notion that you would impose a temporary ban on something until clear security problems had been resolved is far from an outrageous one. For example on October 31st 2015 (31/10/15) a civilian passenger jet was bombed out of the skies over Egypt. Many European nations responded to that terror attack by banning their citizens from travelling to that Muslim nation.

While Donald Trump was calling for a temporary ban on Muslim's entering the US that is exactly what the US government under President Barack Obama was doing. In the weeks following the San Bernardino attack a number of British Muslims found that their visas to travel to the US had suddenly been cancelled.

The two cases that spring to my mind are the Mahmood family and Farrokah Sekaleshfar. Of course it emerged that the Mahmood family's visa had been cancelled because the eldest son had been liking and sharing Al Qaeda propaganda on Facebook. Rather raising the question of why he was given a visa in the first place?

How mainstream and sensible Trump's calls for improvements to the visa system actually are became clear when he laid out his policy in detail - the so-called "Extreme Vetting." Suddenly the chorus of disapproval from the Democrats changed from; "He's a Hitler!" to; "He's Just Copying Obama!"

Then there is the issue of abortion. Ever since the Supreme Court of the United States SCOTUS upheld the right to abortion in Roe V Wade (1973) this has been a major fault line within US politics. Traditionally the Democrats support the right to abortion while the Republicans oppose it.

Donald Trump however sits firmly in the centre ground on the issue leaning towards pro-choice. This has made it extremely hard for the Democrats to attack him on an issue they traditionally use to distinguish themselves from the Republicans.

The best the Democrats have been able to do is point to an interview in which Donald Trump was asked if in a world where abortion had been made illegal women who have illegal abortions should be punished. Trump said that he thought that they should. However you'll notice that at no point has Trump said that he would like to see a world where abortion is illegal.

The principle that a society decides that certain activities are unacceptable so passes laws against them and then punishes people who still continue to engage in those activities is not a new one. I would like to say that it's been in place since America was born as a nation. However it actually goes back much further than that. 

Although I'm not a particularly religious man I think the concept of crime as a moral wrong was introduced when Moses brought the ten commandments down from Mount Sinai and was further codified by the Deuteronomic Codes back in 1406 B.C

So saying that for the good of society people who break laws that society has passed should be punished is not an outrageous statement. I can see though why Hillary Clinton would have a problem with it.

The problems that Trump's moderate stance on things like abortion are causing him with the Republican base were clearly on display in the third and final Presidential debate hosted by Fox News.

Here Donald Trump in particular was asked what he would do if SCOTUS overturned Roe V Wade. 

Rather than trying to undermine his support amongst swing voters this was intended to damage Trump in the eyes of the Republican base by making it clear that he does not support a ban on abortion. I think that Trump actually did rather well in dealing with this aggressive line of questioning by pointing out that it would then fall to individual states to make their own decision.

What is very worrying is that the Democrats then tried to spin this answer it into evidence that Trump was some sort of abortion banning dictator. That showed a complete lack of understanding on their part of the role of a Supreme Court in a Constitutional democracy.

The role of a Supreme Court and a written Constitution is to provide a check or limit on the power of the Executive branch - the President. If the Supreme Court rules that a law or policy of the President is unconstitutional there is nothing the President can do about it.

The outrage that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats showed at the notion that the President has to abide by rulings of the Supreme Court is one of those warning signs that you are being faced with a looming dictatorship. The Law & Justice (PiS) attempts to overrule the Supreme Court in Poland particularly over the issue of abortion has caused widespread alarm.

Although American politics is still stuck in the two party system the old split of the Capitalist Right and the Socialist Left really no longer exists. The Cold War has ended, the Soviet Union has collapsed and even China is now really only Communist in name only.

Now we've all more or less agreed that Capitalism is the only way forward the new split is between Libertarian Capitalism and Authoritarian Capitalism. This new split cuts across the traditional political parties.

A prime example of Authoritarian Capitalism at work is modern China. Here you have massive State Owned Enterprises (SOE's) that are owned by the government and are responsible for all economic activity. The government then sets all aspects of social policy such as education, planning, healthcare and employee rights to benefit the SOE's.

The model of Authoritarian Capitalism that is emerging in America and the rest of the western world is perhaps even more alarming.

Here rather than SOE's we have massive service companies such as G4S, Mite and Veiloa who perform the traditional roles of government such as running the prisons, schools and refuse collection. With these private companies being able to cripple society what's left of the government is forced to serve these corporations with social policies that strip away things like traditional employee rights and environmental protections.

Unlike SOE's which officially at least are run from the greater good of the nation private service companies Mite and G$S are run exclusively for the benefit of their small group of already extremely rich shareholders and directors.

Libertarian Capitalism is essentially the system we have now. The private sector is allowed to do pretty much as it likes with the exception of certain areas such as workers rights where we the people - through our elected government - impose restrictions in the form of laws for the greater good of society.

Therefore the Republicans who have decided to oppose Donald Trump and support Hillary Clinton fall into two broad camps.

The largest of these are the Republicans who are backed by big business to promote Authoritarian Capitalism. With her hedge fund backers and speeches to the likes Goldman Sachs those Republicans see Hillary Clinton as their natural ally.

Then of course there is the Evangelical Christian wing of the Republican Party. Through his refusal to oppose abortion they view Donald Trump as nowhere near extreme enough to represent them.

Therefore they are supporting Hillary Clinton in the hope that she will be such an absolute disaster as President it will cause people to flock to the Republican Party in droves. 

The thinking being that combined with defeat for Trump this will allow them to kill off the centre ground within the Republican Party once and for all. They will then get to have their extremist President in four years time and every four years until Judgement Day.

Donald Trump is of course a candidate of limited political experience. Instead his background is in the world of business.

Normally this is something that I would say counts against a candidate. In business parties get together and do deals because it is in their mutual interests. Politics and in particular diplomacy is often much more about getting people to do things that run contrary to their best interests.

So in business after shaking hands on a deal people will go off and do their best to make that deal a success. In politics after shaking hands on a deal people will often go off and do their best to get out of the agreement. This can present a steep learning curve for business leaders who are new to politics.

However Donald Trump is much more than just another businessman. For the past 30 years he's been the Chief Executive of the Trump Organisation. This is a multinational holding company operating in more than thirty nations. This gives Donald Trump huge experience in dealing with foreign nations, their laws and political systems.

In effect Donald Trump has long been operating his own State Department. This gives him a wealth of experience and a number of advantages.

Back in June 2016 the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU). This is one of the biggest events to affect the continent since the end of the Cold War. As just one of its consequences it has triggered speculation that Scotland could leave the UK and attempt to rejoin the EU as an independent nation.

Donald Trump of course owns and operates the Trump International Golf Links golf course and resort in Scotland. On the day the referendum results were announced this allowed him to be on the ground in the UK talking to local people, political leaders and journalists. I think Hillary Clinton was taking a nap.

One of the big challenges the next President of the United States will face is the current war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). One of the key nations involved in this is Turkey. They have taken to discussing the issue by issuing terrorist threats against US interests inside of Turkey. Just on October 29th (29/10/16) the US Embassy in Istanbul was forced to evacuate the dependents of its staff.

One of the key US interests in Turkey is the Trump Tower complex in Sisli, Istanbul. This itself was (lightly) bombed on April 9th 2016 (9/4/16). So I think it's pretty clear who Turkey's Islamist and increasingly dictatorial President Erdogan is endorsing for US President.

This summer of course has seen the Olympic Games in Rio de Janerio, Brazil. As is always the case preparations for those games have been accompanied by a mass of infrastructure building and urban regeneration. The centre piece of Rio's regeneration has been the "Marvellous Port" project. At the heart of that construction there is a Trump Tower hotel.

Aside from Turkey the Trump Organisation operates a number of business in majority Muslim, Gulf Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for one. So while Hillary Clinton warns US voters who will probably never see a Muslim in real life that Trump is an Islamaphobic dictator Donald Trump actually knows a lot of Muslims and has worked with them for a good number of years.

The main skill that I think his years of business will have taught Donald Trump is that of delegation.Obviously the job of President is too complex for one person do alone. So they have to appoint trusted deputies to manage specific areas in detail and then report back.

You only need to look at who he appointed as Secretary of State back in 2008 to realise that this is a skill President Obama has taken a painfully long time to learn.

I will address that in morning tomorrow. If the Internet permits me.

12:15 on 4/11/16 (UK date).